Return to the Path
Examine your presuppositions and action patterns. There are things there that are holding you back. There was a time when we were on the path. Your routines and presuppositions were on point, and we were cruising. When the world distributes chaos, there’s a tendency to release the patterns on your path so that you can readjust to the new novelty given to you by life.
The fluctuation of our path is natural and normal. We will continue to fall off the path so that we can rediscover and reevaluate what was there. Chaos creates opportunities to reexamine those assumptions and habit patterns, retain what’s working and shed what’s dead.
The challenge lies in realizing that you were off the path and taking time to adapt to the disorder. We look for where we strayed, and the way we find it is by auditing how we feel.
There are times in my life where I am humming, just cruising along and crushing it. Other times, I am doing a lot of napping and eating burritos. When we’re humming along, it’s easy to take for granted to patterns that we’ve established. If they’re working, there’s no desire to assess them. Good to go. But when things fall apart, we tend to lose those action patterns and return to what feels good in the moment. It’s what we need. That’s ok.
Now we return to the path. The path was there. Now we return. This is how.
Find time to breathe.
Yea, I know. We all want to meditate more. It’s big business finding ways to trick people to meditate. Here’s the hack. Take two minutes to be silent and breath. Whatever bubbles in your brain, that’s what you write down and deal with. You’ve been avoiding it. Do it.
Find a cue to breath. As I write to you, there’s a group of men at this coffee shop who took time to pray before they ate their bagels. What a lovely practice. Regardless of your beliefs, food can be a cue. Use meals as a cue to pause and breath. Something will happen. I promise. That something could be an anxiety, a regret, a plan, a day dream. Whatever it is, pursue it.
Move your body.
This blog post sounds like every other wellness blog on the planet. But that’s because these things are true. If you move your body— walk, yoga, take stairs, swing your arms, jump on a trampoline, do something— then you’ll be able to settle the nervous system so that you can let the mind get quieter. When the mind quiets, you can see a path forward.
Drink more water.
It’s that simple. Your brain runs on electricity. Keep it hydrated.
Talk to people.
Sometimes it’s hard to drag your tooshie out to see people. Introverted or extroverted, it doesn’t matter. You need people. Go out and seek people. If you don’t have a strong friend group right now, settle for lousy friends. Thin the pack later. But you have to build something before you can start to hone it.
Falling off the path will happen again. Trust me. I’ve just returned to it. In meditation, the teachers tell us, “Return to the breath if you’re lost. Return without judgement. Nod to the thought and come back.” This practice traverses into assessing our path.